Why Vanderbilt's Jerry Stackhouse wants to 'beat the hell out of everybody' in non-conference

After missing the NCAA Tournament last season, Vanderbilt basketball coach Jerry Stackhouse wants to change the way he approaches games with a lead. Instead of emptying the bench, Stackhouse said at SEC Media Days on Wednesday that his team won't shy away from running up the score with a big lead.

This comes after the Commodores missed March Madness despite being tied for fourth in the SEC and making the SEC Tournament semifinals. Vanderbilt had two Quadrant 3 losses and a Quadrant 4 loss, a 5-11 Quadrant 1 record and a NET ranking at No. 81. The selection committee overlooked the Commodores' 11-7 SEC record and instead saw a team with too many bad losses, not enough good wins and the inability to pull away from opponents via margin of victory.

Stackhouse hopes to change that in part by scheduling a high number of low-major opponents and winning by a lot.

"I think it's sad that it's the case because of these metrics," Stackhouse said. "If you're up with a 20-point lead, you can't put your guys in at the end of the bench, you have to try to maintain that 20-point lead. That's the reality of how it's weighed with the different rankings and things like that. We're going to finish games."

There are four high-major opponents on Vanderbilt's 2023-24 schedule, plus Memphis. Four of those five games are on the road or at neutral sites, with only an SEC/ACC Challenge contest against Boston College at home.

"When in Rome, do what the Romans do," Stackhouse said. "We try to beat the hell out of everybody in our early non-conference games, then if you falter a little bit during the SEC season, which we didn't, but it didn't pan out for us as well. We kind of learned from that and we're going to try to adjust accordingly."

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Aria Gerson covers Vanderbilt athletics for The Tennessean. Contact her at agerson@gannett.com or on Twitter @aria_gerson.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt basketball: Jerry Stackhouse wants to run up the score